FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT ANTHONY ACCETTURO - PAGE 2

When reputed mobster Anthony Accetturo was indicted on charges of fixing races at Calder Race Track, Ronald Reagan was seeking election to his first term as president, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird were rookie basketball pros and Walter Cronkite was still an anchorman for CBS. That was August 1980, when Accetturo was living in Hollywood and federal agents were calling him the most active mobster in South Florida. Today, Reagan and Cronkite are long retired, Johnson and Bird are cagey veterans and Accetturo is going to trial.

A misdemeanor weapons charge has been dismissed against the son of Anthony "Tumac" Accetturo, a former Hollywood resident reputed to be a mobster. Anthony Accetturo Jr., 24, of Hollywood, was arrested in May last year along with a friend, Robert A. Peterson, 24, of Hallandale, after a Florida Highway Patrol trooper discovered a shotgun in their car. Both men were charged with openly carrying a weapon. Broward County Court Judge Kathleen Kearney dismissed the case on Monday. Defense attorney Ray Sandstrom said Florida law does not prohibit carrying a rifle or a shotgun in one`s car.

Opening arguments in the oft-delayed trial of reputed mobster Anthony Accetturo began on Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Miami. Acceturo was indicted on charges of fixing races at Calder Race Course in August 1980. He was living in Hollywood, and federal agents were calling him the most active mobster in South Florida. The weeklong trial is likely to pivot on the testimony of a major drug trafficker who is in the government`s federal witness protection program and has helped put other suspected Mafia figures in prison.

The son of reputed Hollywood mobster Anthony "Tumac" Accetturo went to court on Friday on a weapons charge when detectives moved in and arrested him on a warrant out of North Carolina -- for failing to return rented videotapes. Anthony Accetturo Jr., 24, appeared at a hearing in Broward Circuit Court on a misdemeanor charge of carrying a firearm. He and a friend were arrested by the Florida Highway Patrol on May 25 when a shotgun was found in the car. As he left court, Accetturo was arrested by Broward Sheriff`s Office deputies on the North Carolina warrant.

Reputed mob soldier Anthony Accetturo Jr. pleaded not guilty Monday in U.S. District Court to charges he extorted more than $500,000 from a boyhood friend who built a successful moving and storage company during a decade Accetturo spent in prison. Appearing before U.S. Magistrate Lurana Snow in Fort Lauderdale, Accetturo said he's broke and can't afford to pay his lawyers, Jamie Benjamin and David Aaronson. He said his family, a brother and a sister, refuse to pay for his defense. He said in court he'd had a falling out with his siblings.

Two Broward men have been sentenced to 30-year prison terms for directing a cocaine distribution network while they were on bond awaiting trial in a Mafia racketeering case. Giacomo DiNorscio, 46, of Sunrise, and Gerald Cohen, 45, of North Lauderdale, were sentenced on Monday in federal court in Newark, N.J. The pair, along with two dozen other alleged Lucchese crime family members and associates, are still awaiting trial in the racketeering case. The August 1985 racketeering indictment charges that DiNorscio and Cohen split the profits of cocaine sales with reputed mob kingpin Anthony Accetturo of Hollywood, who allegedly gave marching orders for the drug sales operation and other illegal rackets.

The trial of reputed mobster Anthony Accetturo on charges of fixing horse races has been postponed until December while a federal judge considers whether prosecutors went too far in obtaining evidence. Accetturo, 47, of Hollywood had been scheduled to go to trial today before U.S. District Judge Edward B. Davis in Miami. But, on Friday, Davis postponed the trial to consider the question of prosecutorial misconduct raised in a separate trial in which Accetturo faces tax evasion charges.

A federal judge on Thursday rejected an attempt by reputed mob boss Anthony "Tumac" Accetturo of Hollywood, whose lawyer is terminally ill, to have his trial separated from 20 other defendants` in a racketeering case. The trial, taking place in Newark, N.J., had been suspended indefinitely when it was announced on Feb. 16 that Accetturo`s original lawyer, Milton Ferrell Sr. of Miami, was diagnosed as having inoperable cancer of the spine and liver. Accetturo`s new lawyer, Arlin Adams, had argued on Wednesday that a new attorney could not properly represent Accetturo because the 15-month-old trial is so complicated and involves so many people.

A U.S. federal appeals court has ruled that reputed Mafia boss Anthony Accetturo of Hollywood, who was acquitted by a federal jury earlier this year, must face charges of lying on his 1975 and 1976 federal income tax returns. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, returned this week, overturned an earlier ruling by U.S. District Judge Alcee Hastings. Hastings had dismissed one of two fraudulent income tax charges returned by a 1983 federal grand jury in Fort Lauderdale after Accetturo claimed that prosecutorial misconduct tainted the investigation.